10 things you need to know today

Israeli-Arab
Issa Kassissieh during an annual Christmas-tree distribution by
the Jerusalem municipality on the Mount of Olives in
Jerusalem.Reuters/

Before markets open on Tuesday here's what you need to know.

Elon Musk's SpaceX did something that had never been done
before. The space-exploration company made history
by sending an orbital rocket into space and landing it back on
the ground. The milestone is significant as it could eventually
lead to spaceflight that uses reusable rockets. Elon Musk
tweeted, "There and back again," and attached a picture of the
flight path once the mission was complete.

Pep Boys likes Carl Icahn's offer. Activist investor
Carl Icahn has raised his offer for the US auto-parts retailer to
$16.50 per share. Pep Boys' board of directors has come out in
support of the Icahn offer, saying it preferred his offer to the
$15.50-per-share offer from Bridgestone, which initially offered
$15 a share but raised its bid to $15.50 to match Icahn.

NetApp
is buying a storage company. The tech-storage giant
NetApp has agreed to buy the solid-state-storage startup
SolidFire for $870 million in cash. The acquisition will help
NetApp reach enterprises that want to build their storage systems
in a quieter, faster, and more efficient way. "SolidFire
will materially improve the growth rate of NetApp over time,"
NetApp CEO George Kurian said. "It will take time and investment
to achieve that. And at that point it will also improve earnings.
In the near term it will be dilutive to earnings because we need
to invest to make it succeed."

Brazil is going after BHP Billiton and Vale. A
Brazilian court has ordered the miners BHP Billiton and Vale to
set aside $491 million after a collapsed dam at their joint
venture released 60 million cubic meters of mud downstream,
killing at least 17 and contaminating the water systems of
hundreds of towns and cities. The companies' assets in the
country have been frozen, and they face the possibility of
billions of dollars more in damages. Both companies have been
ordered to carry out extensive environmental and social work in
the areas affected by the collapse.

The CDC is looking into another possible E. coli outbreak at
Chipotle. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention say five new E. coli cases could be linked to
Chipotle. One person in Kansas, one person in North Dakota, and
three people in Oklahoma all reported eating at Chipotle in the
week before they fell ill. This follows cases in Illinois,
Maryland, and Pennsylvania, as well as an ongoing investigation
of a strain that left 120 Boston College students ill. Chipotle
has since created new food-safety programs it is implementing.
"With all of these programs in place, we are confident that
we can achieve a level of food safety risk that is near zero,"
Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said in a statement.

Toshiba was cut to junk at Moody's. The electronics
maker is having a bad week. On Monday, the company announced it
was taking a record loss of 550 billion yen ($4.5 billion)
and eliminating 7,000 jobs while narrowing its focus to chips and
nuclear energy. On Tuesday, the company's debt rating was cut to
junk at Moody's with a two-notch downgrade from Baa3 to
Ba2. "We expect that Toshiba's leverage will stay high over
a prolonged period, given that its restructuring costs will
exceed our previous estimates, and our expectation of improvement
in earnings, if any, for each business segment will be very
gradual even after the restructuring," Masako Kuwahara, a
Moody's vice president and senior analyst,
said.

Bill Gates was the biggest insider seller in 2015.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates sold $1.5 billion worth of the
company's stock in 2015, according to Sqoop.com. But that was far
less than the $3.35 billion he sold in 2014. The data shows
Google cofounders Sergey Brin ($868 million) and Larry Page ($857
million) were second and third on the insider selling list.
Insiders are allowed to sell stock as long as they don't used
privileged information during their decision process.

Stock markets around the world are little
changed. China's Shanghai Composite (+0.3%) hit its best
level in four months while leading the gains in Asia. Elsewhere,
Spain's IBEX (+0.7%) outperforms during a quiet session in
Europe. S&P 500 futures are up 1.25 points at 2,016.25.

US economic data picks up. The third estimate of
US third-quarter gross domestic product is due out at 8:30 a.m.
ET. We also get a look at the housing market as the FHFA's
Housing Price Index is set for release at 9 a.m. ET and
existing-home sales are announced at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year
yield is higher by 1 basis point at 2.21%.

There are a few earnings reports of note.
ConAgra reports ahead of the opening bell, while Micron and Nike
release their quarterly results after markets close.